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The wonderful thing about lurking in the background as a wayward, traffic-oblivious music website is the freedom to idolize lingering obsessions some six months or more after their initial discovery.
Sharon Van Etten’s forlorn ruminations spent the better part of winter idly swinging their legs from the speakers and turntables of everyone who’d managed to get their hands on them. Etten’s collection of melancholy folk songs, candidly titled Because I Was In Love, comes across as the ultimate exercise in self-preservation.
“I Wish I Knew” has no home, no shoes, is frayed cuffs and stems; the subdued strumming and doleful timbre do well to paint it as the type of inward reflection born of dissipation. As such, it comes as little surprise when, just shy of the finish line, Etten’s voice starts to teeter, the warbled melody aimless, the integrity of the track suddenly compromised.
“Haunting” may be as overused an adjective in music journalism as “chanteuse” is as a noun. As much as I’d like to ascribe these titles to Etten, her music leaps between both too often to truly be either, pitting the ghostly, multilayered vocals of “For You” against the unwavering clarity of “I Wish I Knew,” respectively.
Regardless, Etten’s shortcomings are minimal. Yes, even a year later.
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Nestled among contemporary music journalism’s gravest shortcomings lies an inability to discuss distortion-loving female singer-songwriters unapologetically.
In lieu of objective criticism, we dedicate hours to justifying the shortcomings of popular female acts while relegating others to digital obscurity. Praise comes easily enough when we strike upon women releasing one devastating song after another, and we happily fete those who excel at the uncommon, say by straddling harps or by boasting perpetually bewildered, doe-eyed expressions. Now granted, some of these performers occasionally walk the musical middle ground between tempestuous and demure, but even then, it’s only a smattering of women actively sidestepping the pop/electro/acoustic-train-to-Sad-Town.
Despite the rash of lauded lo-fi records released by women of late, how often do these artists actually manage to breach their devoted niche audiences? Some would say very. People are ravenous for Best Coast; Dum Dum Girls are opening for Beach House and Vampire Weekend; Coasting, Brooklyn’s latest insufferable girl duo, even opened for The Clean. I get it, really. Fuzzy women are A-OK. But is that it? Is an opening slot the most one can aspire to these days as a non-major frontwoman with inclinations toward the raucous?
Two years have passed since insightful reviews championing the efforts of guitar behemoth Marnie Stern flooded the Internet. Perhaps the dearth I lament is only a temporary lull. Or perhaps I should resign myself to a likely correlation between diminishing opportunities for nurturing artists with an ever-fragmenting critical landscape.
An overall waning interest in rock remains as much a culprit as the lack of coverage of its proponents. After all, a few of the latter admittedly continue to exist, though it would appear we’ve sacrificed our interest in discussing the content produced by today’s women of rock in favor of discussing the context in which it appears, either visually or temporally.
Canada’s Land Of Talk is a band who would have owned college radio back in its heyday. As you may have noticed, they’re loud. And catchy. And technically capable. The founding members met in a jazz program (note to jazz musicians: you, too, can start a successful indie rock band). And yes, while lead singer Elizabeth Powell’s attractiveness certainly isn’t hindering the band, I’d never cite it as the primary cause for the considerable admiration and respect Land Of Talk have garnered over the past few years.
For others, the throwbacks will have to do. The bland harmonies under repetitive power chords? Well, they’ll have to do as well, I guess. But please, someone tell me when a woman who’d actually pick up an electric guitar and play it — one who’d sing into a microphone and ultimately do her best to craft a quality song that was, above all else, hers — morphed into some nonexistent mythical figure. What confluence of events could have possibly brought us here, where the most we seem capable of asking female rockers is a glimpse at the past and a set of cute bangs?
I can understand how decades’ worth of undocumented female jazz instrumentalists may have led to the current lack of renown female performers within that genre; everyone needs someone of their likeness to admire. With rock, however, somewhere along the way things just died.
Rock had The Slits. It had Sleater-Kinney and Electrelane. It had Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth.
Not to mention the non-white female guitarists.
Despite what Elle may have led you to believe with its recent, all-pasty edition of The 12 Greatest Female Electric Guitarists, there have been countless rocking women of color who, unsurprisingly, remain largely unknown. If you’ve never heard Sister Rosetta Tharpe, I highly suggest viewing the video below.
It’s difficult to avoid feeling as though a new, critically-imposed/hype-driven glass ceiling has formed for musicians of all backgrounds, one kept in place by authoritative sources repeatedly failing to discern spectacle from substance.
That said, at the end of the day, thank God for Blonde Redhead. And Marnie Stern. And Brilliant Colors. And Shannon and the Clams. And for others I’m not partial to but respect (e.g. Screaming Females). And for all the unknowns who deserve better than our ignorance of them.
And, yes, obviously for Land of Talk.
Say what you will about the charming nature of the Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, and, hey, even Brooklyn’s burgeoning Girls at Dawn, I have a hard time imagining anyone caring to debate the matter of these bands’ authenticity. Shannon and the Clams may harp on the sixties as well, but if you can’t hear the difference between Shannon’s “The Warlock In The Woods” and 90% of her contemporaries’ material we’ve likely reached an impasse.
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How would it sound if Broken Social Scene and The New Pornographers didn’t spend half their albums jerking off? Like the start of the new Here We Go Magic album, which, I’m sorry to report, proceeds to spend seven-tenths of its total running time jerking off. “Collector” remains a standout track. “Land Of Feeling” would as well were it not for a synth-induced identity crisis encountered at its halfway mark.
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It comes with the rain, usually. Or from the motel tap. Your gas station coffee. The sneeze on your shoulder. The mud on your boots. Socks inverted, reverted, tossed in the trunk. There, on the holes in the linens. Against the hum of lights. Between the pushpins in your office. On your neighbor’s squeaking mattress. Under your mother’s missed call. Even on the floss half-hanging from the rubbish, not yours.
There, near the highway, by the gravel, times to think are the worst times to think; one should never stare idly at their own front door, either of them. Tonight a plastic keyring. Free porn on the television set. The motel tap. Again. The mud on your boots. Your gas station coffee. That slipping of things, when it comes. Sometimes with the rain. Today in the post. A key and a doormat. A note: I hated none of you, I loved you all at the time.
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Francis And The Lights are set to seduce several hundred people play New York City’s Bowery Ballroom this Thursday, May 13th. There may be rioting. Going off previous concerts, there will be squealing (and lots of it).
Bringing the camera, though I doubt it will capture anything as spectacular as the video above.
